MARILYN ROBB: All
right, we're going to go ahead and get started. My name is Marilyn Robb. And on behalf of
the Class Marshals, welcome to the first lecture in
the 2018 Last Lecture Series. Last Lectures present
an opportunity for selected faculty members
to impart final words of wisdom on the graduating class. There will be four
Last Lectures, starting today and
happening every Wednesday through the last
week of classes. We're very excited for this
year's incredible lineup. In reverse chronological order,
the last week of classes, we'll be hearing from
Professor Paul Butler. The week before that,
Professor Carol Steiker. The week before that, which
is next week, Professor Alex Whiting. And today, Professor
Jody Freeman. Before we begin, I do want
to let you all know we are recording today's lecture. So if you ask a question,
that will be recorded. But now it is my privilege to
introduce Professor Freeman. Professor Freeman-- [APPLAUSE] Professor Freeman is the
Archibald Cox Professor of Law, and the founding director
of Harvard Law School's Environmental
Energy Law Program. She is a leading scholar
of both administrative law and environmental law, and
has written extensively on federal agency
regulation, climate change, energy and environmental
policy, and executive authority. She has served in
the White House as Counselor for Energy
and Climate Change. And at HLS, she teaches
environmental law, first year legislation regulation,
and many of us know her as our
administrative law professor. I took Professor Freeman's
admin class last spring and I loved it. Professor Freeman is a
great teacher, the rare HLS tenured unicorn
that actually cares about-- and is good at--
communicating information clearly. [LAUGHTER] JODY FREEMAN: I like "unicorn." MARILYN ROBB: And
she also communicates the relevance of the
material, which was great in the spring of 2017. But I think what really sets
Professor Freeman's class apart, and what really makes
it enjoyable and positive, is her sense of humor. The semester I took
her class, there was a terrible snowstorm one day. And I was in Professor
Freeman's class when we received an
email that all afternoon classes were canceled. It was a very loud storm. The snow was coming down
hard, the wind was howling. And during one
particularly loud gust of wind that rattled our
Langdell North classroom, Professor Freeman stopped
the class and said, it's OK, I have Luna bars. The class laughed, and she
corrected us, no, they're just for me. So Professor Freeman, you may
not have given us Luna bars, but you've given us something
that's arguably more valuable. Thank you for the opportunity
to learn from you, both in class and today. And to members of
the class of 2018, please join me in welcoming
Professor Freeman. [APPLAUSE] PROFESSOR FREEMAN: Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon. My phone has so much good
stuff on it right now, and I'm going to read
you a few of them, and then I want to talk
about some of them later. I am going to give
you an actual lecture, but I hope we have
a little bit of time at the end so we can have a
little bit of back and forth. So to prep for the
back and forth, I'm just going to read you,
anonymously, without the phone numbers, some things. Not having time for
family and life. Getting stuck in a dead-end
job with no good exit options. Not finding my passion. Not making a lasting impact. Being mediocre-- several times. Failing to make
structural reform. Realizing I know nothing
and have no useful skills. [LAUGHTER] Disappointing my family
and friends back home by not living up to
expectations or potential. Losing focus on what brought
me to law, colon, justice. Never having time to see my son. Not being brave enough
to try new career paths after my first job. Squandering all of the
outrageous advantages society has given to me. Failure, failure, failure. Working crazy hours. Never finding a job
that gets me out of bed. Mediocrity. Long-distance relationship. Marrying the right person. Being lonely. Boredom. Uncertainty. Making the wrong decision. You get it, and that
means you are not alone. Thank you for being here. I am really honored, and
thrilled, and chuffed, that I got an invitation
to give you a Last Lecture, I must tell you. You may think we're all way
too beyond this kind of thing, but we love it when
one of you shows up in our office with a piece of
paper and says, you got chosen. The most famous Last Lecture,
which you may all know about, was delivered by a
professor named Randy Pausch-- not in a law school. He was an inspirational
computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon who died
tragically of pancreatic cancer very young-- younger than me. And with his diagnosis
in hand, and told he only had a few months to
live, he stood up and told his students to
follow their childhood dreams. And he exhorted them to pursue a
life of creativity and passion, and this sort of became
the initial Last Lecture. And I think people thought,
what a fabulous thing. But it shouldn't take
a tragedy like that to get people to give that
kind of inspirational address. It would be hard to
do better than that, but I will do my best
and speak from the heart. This is a very important
moment for you. I think it deserves
some serious reflection by you, which you're clearly
starting to do, I think. Maybe not now. Maybe you can't really
give it the time it deserves right
now, with the flurry at the end of the year, the
activity, and the stress level right now. But soon, I do hope you
will, at some point, unplug, disconnect, go
off-grid, and find some space to really think about
where you've been, and where you're going. This is one of those kind
of "taking stock moments." You're really about
to launch yourselves into the rest of your lives. I do think it's as dramatic
as it sounds, actually. And I think it's worth
pausing, and taking a moment to look back and forward. What I hope to
persuade you of today is that you are equipped,
whether you fully recognize it or not, with a hugely valuable
and distinctive skill set that is yours to deploy
in whatever realm you choose to make your mark. You actually now have the tools
you need to be successful. And I also want to urge you to
think about success broadly, rather than narrowly,
not in terms of a successful career only, but
in terms of a successful life. So as the title promises-- I called it "On Life and Law." As the title promises,
I have some thoughts about both life and law
that I hope you might find at least a little bit useful. So first, let's talk
about the skill set. What does legal
training give you? You probably have a
point of view about this, but I'll share with
you what I think. It gives you
analytical crispness. It gives you
attention to detail. It gives you careful reading
and parsing of texts. It gives you the capacity
to engage in close scrutiny of people's claims. It gives you the
ability to focus a discussion, and the capacity
to spot a puzzle, or a problem, or a conundrum, or
an inconsistency, and to work it and
try to solve it, which requires a
lot of persistence. It gives you, too,
argumentation-- that is, the ability to
articulate an argument and to structure an
argument, to think and to write clearly,
deliberately, and persuasively. This is a marvelous skill,
the skill of argumentation, and you would be shocked at how
few people actually have it. It gives you, too,
legal training, attentiveness what what I would
call implementation challenges, which otherwise could be called,
"how do you get that thing done, it's a good idea." When somebody comes up with
a policy idea, right, it's the lawyers who say,
well hang on, sorry, which institution do we
need to get that done? And who has
authority to do that? And what might the system
look like if we did that? And what step comes first? And which instruments,
exactly, do we need? Implementation--
how to get it done. We are the ones who figure out
how to operationalize things, and it's crucial. Legal training also
gives you the capacity to anticipate problems, which
kind of makes you a drag. But it also makes you very
effective at protecting people's interests and thinking
of alternatives in case things go wrong. Also very valuable-- contingency
planning is a strength of ours. We also train you to be
alert to complexity, which means to broaden
your perspective and see arguments from various
vantage points, from all sides. And sometimes, we
specifically ask you to argue the side
you don't believe in, or we suspect you
don't believe in-- which seems cruel,
but really, it isn't. Because it's really an exercise
in compassion, to imagine what the other side would say. The ability to see complexity
is an especially good skill because once you learn
it, it's harder for others to put one over
on you, or for you to put one over on yourself. If you can see the
complexity in a problem, you can ferret out the
intellectual dishonesty. There's a dark side
to this, too, however, because the ability to
argue any position-- which of course we
invite you to do in the law school classroom-- enables you to do great
harm, because you can embrace any position, if you want to. So it comes with
a responsibility to exercise restraint
and to have humility. What I mean is, just because
an argument is imaginable by you does not mean
it is a good argument, or that it should be made
by a responsible lawyer. Legal training
also gives you this problem-solving orientation. And it's not enough to
identify the problem, right? We also hope to inspire
creativity in you to think about how to solve
it, one way or the other. And this requires
judgment, too-- meaning, if you're
well-trained in law school, if you have these skills,
you don't just say no. If people say, can
I get that done? Can I do it this way? What do you think? If you think it's a no,
you don't just say no. You say, well
maybe not that way, but you're creative enough
to say, how about this way? How about this alternative way? So that you're
always thinking of, how do I accomplish
what it is we need to be accomplishing,
even if it's not the initial way we imagined? Although I just want to
say, sometimes, you really have to say no. And knowing the difference
is the key, right? Once in a while, you
put your foot down. Legal training is also
an education in power, which I know you understand. That is, who has it,
how it's exercised, and how it might be influenced. This is essential
to understanding the society in which you live
so that you can make choices about what you
want to fight for, and how you very effectively
might fight for it. And when you put all
of this together-- all of these skills together-- it can be very, very powerful. And I just want to give
you one little vignette about my own experience
with legal training, which is a little older now. It's from the Obama
years, of course. And I remember a meeting
at which I brought together a whole bunch of lawyers-- lawyers from different
government agencies, lawyers from the Department of Justice,
lawyers from the White House-- who, as it turned out,
I was shocked to learn, didn't normally talk to
each other all in advance of issuing a very important,
high-profile rule that would change the course of humanity. No, but, before--
the tradition was that agencies developed these
rules, and they put them out. And then the Department
of Justice, as you know, may defend them later
when they get challenged. But it wasn't like there was
an initial upfront conversation among all the lawyers
about how to think about doing this
in a way that would make it legally more robust. And so I remember
convening this meeting. And all these
lawyers are in a room together from these different
parts of the government, with very different
interests and different kinds of priorities. And I remember all
these people puzzling through this regulatory problem
together, start to finish-- from designing the
rule, to the thinking through the
implementation, thinking through the litigation,
thinking through the legal vulnerabilities. It was a really long,
multi-hour meeting, and they were thinking
about the attacks that would come, and
from where, and how. And you know, DOJ,
which is like, picture a bow tie saying
to people in a fleece, you can't do that. And the people in fleece
going, but it's right. And the Department of Justice
going, but it won't survive. And then-- and stuff like that. Picture this kind of meeting. And I remember, and I
still have the legal pad. I wrote on the legal pad,
I love good lawyering-- actually sincerely, I
love good lawyering. Because here they were
together, fixing this problem, being super creative,
checking one another, being really rigorous. And it was hugely
productive and positive, and it produced
something that I didn't imagine we could produce. I love good lawyering. When you see it, it's
a beautiful moment. And you have the
skills to do this kind of high-quality
creative thinking now. The skill set you now have
is going to serve you well in any career you choose,
whether you ultimately practice law or do something else. And many of you may turn
out to do something else. You may go into business,
you may go into politics, you may go into the
entertainment industry, you might write
poetry, you might do lots of different things. But I promise you that these
skills will come in handy. HLS alums, as you
guys well know, have been successful in
virtually every domain, including law of course,
but also the arts, business, politics-- everything
you can imagine. Some of our most famous
and accomplished alums are in far-flung
fields you wouldn't now think of as something you
might wind up working in. But we also produce some of
the nation's leading lawyers. We have produced at least two
presidents and a first lady. We have produced
22 cabinet members, at least 10 attorneys general,
at least 32 senators-- and maybe another on the way
if Mitt Romney wins Utah-- 18 governors, 15
Supreme Court justices, including six now sitting,
or 5.5, depending on how you count Justice Ginsburg. We've produced business leaders,
some of whom you've heard of. John Jacob Astor, the famous
businessman, investor, and inventor who went
down on the Titanic; the founder of the first US
Oil Company, the current CEOs of Goldman Sachs,
and, I think still, American Express; the founder
of the Hyatt Hotel chain. Activists-- like Ralph
Nader; Sandra Froman, who is the past president of
the NRA; Archibald Grimké, the co-founder of the
NAACP; Jennifer Gordon, a famous immigrant
labor organizer. Sports-- a general manager of
the Mets, a Major League ball player, a professional wrestler,
a champion poker player. And the winner-- this is
my personal favorite-- of the Miss America contest. You really can live your dreams,
is what I'm trying to tell you. We even have some notable
dropouts you may have heard of. Roscoe Pound was a dropout
who went on to become the Dean of the Law School. Bob Rubin, who went on to become
the Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. William Henry Moody, who became
a Supreme Court Justice-- seriously. And some fictitious graduates
that you probably have heard of, like Thurston Howell III-- Gilligan's Island, dated
cultural reference. If you do this to me, it
will just make me feel old. OK, Elle Woods? Fictitious. Miranda Hobbes, now running
for governor in New York? OK, so, nevermind. Anyway, we have
fictitious alums. You are not fictitious
alums, however. You are real alums, and
your future awaits you. We've also produced numerous
poets, novelists, essayists, political commentators,
giants in the world of media and the arts, in the nonprofit
world, in philanthropy. And this year's
bicentennial celebration should convince
you of this, if I haven't with my actually
abbreviated list. So many talented
people are running around the law school
who were once sitting exactly where you are now. The point is, legal training
empowers you to do anything you want-- seriously-- because the rigorous
analytic mind of a good lawyer is an asset to you no
matter what you pursue. So that's my best case
for the skill set-- for three years of this skill
set-- and why it's valuable, and why it's going
to serve you well. But I want to turn now to life. And I have a feeling
that this moment, thinking about graduation,
you're actually a bit more focused on life. And from my phone,
I get the feeling that it's not just concern
about law that's on your mind, but concern about the
larger questions of life. So I recognize, of course,
that your goal is not simply to have a successful career,
but to build a happy, rich, and satisfying life. And there is more
to life than work. In fact, the way I put it is,
there's more to work than work. In other words, work is not
just about work product. You want to feel
good about yourself, proud of what you
do in the world, and proud of how you
treat other people. So work isn't just
about the outcome-- did you deliver
this or that product to the client, how
many wins and losses? The means of work matter,
too-- how you do it. How you do things is just
important as what you do. You will make many, many choices
in the course of your career that reflect who you
are as a person, that require you to display
your personal ethics. So it's not as if there's work
over here and life over here. There is only one thing,
people, and that is life. And so with that
in mind, I thought I would give you my Top 12-- I wanted to do a Top 10
list, but it came out 12. So I'm giving you
my 12 life tips. Number one, act with integrity. This is the all-important thing. It is the only thing
that, once lost, is nearly impossible
to get back. Protect it fiercely. Two, make a contribution. Build something. There are many, many ways to
do this through your work, through your philanthropy,
through your love. But try to leave a
legacy to be proud of. Number three, do
things that give you a feeling of aliveness. Find ways to pursue
your curiosity and continue learning
and adapting and growing after you've left a formal
educational institution. Number four, be invested. Don't say, well,
it's not up to me to change this place, or this
situation, or this institution, because I'm just
here temporarily. I'm just passing through. Commit to where you are. Be invested. Five, use failure. Failure is searing and painful. Failure is not a picnic. It's not fun. It's very uncomfortable for
people like us, especially. But I have learned the most
from my biggest failures. And if you want, I'll give
you an example later when we go in the back and forth. But I absolutely can tell
you, I have learned the most from my failures. When things go badly, realize-- this is a kind of zen thing-- but realize, it's
just what happened. If it went badly, it's
just what happened. But what you choose
to do with that-- how you choose to
react to that-- is absolutely
within your control. And if you can separate the
what happened when it goes badly from how you react to it and
what you do going forward, that will make a huge
difference to you. Life tip number six, be
a master at something. Be the go-to person
for that one thing, and be indispensable
because of it. Number seven, choose
your mentors carefully. A lot of you, I think, think
that the mentor process is trying to entice
a mentor to pick you. And that's true,
you need to do that. And the worst way to do
it, by the way, is to say, will you be my mentor? That's not going to work. So you're right to think,
I have to think about how to attract the mentors I want. But you also need to think
about choosing them wisely. Don't settle for bad mentors. Don't tolerate toxic bosses. Toxic bosses are the
worst, and you must flee. And after you find
the good mentors and find the good
bosses, one day, commit to repaying what they
have given you by giving the same help back to others. Life tip number
eight, be gracious. Try to be classy and
treat people well, especially the people who work
for you, because you are now in a position that you will
be an employer, and people will work for you. And be especially good to the
people who clean up after you, because you are in a position
to enjoy the benefits of that, too. And there will be all
kinds of ways in life that people are serving you. And you have to be good to them. And I just implore you
never to be arrogant. Don't be tempted to be arrogant. It is so unattractive. And quite apart from
being deeply unattractive, it will not get
you what you want. So even if you're just
instrumentally-minded, don't be arrogant. There are other ways to
get the things you want. Also, tip well. Perfection is impossible, but
aim for grace in all things. Tip number nine, spend some
time in public service. Now this, you expect
from me, but spend some time in public service. You don't need to do this
by running for president. You don't need to even do
this at the federal level. And you don't need to devote
your entire careers to it. But some point, for
some period of time, spend some time doing
something for the government, whether it is federal, state,
county, city, do something that involves you in public life. You will find it, I promise
you, immensely rewarding, and you'll learn a lot. Plus, and I ask you this in
all sincerity, it's not who-- whoops-- let's reverse--
if not who, you-- if not you, who do
you expect to do this? Who else? Do you really trust other
folks other than you and your community
and this network? You would do a
great job, you would bring an enormous
amount to public life, so if not you, who? Ask yourself that question. Life tip 10, recognize that
life is long and life is short. And hold these two things in
your mind at the same time. Understanding that life is
long will bring you patience. It will let you exhale a bit
and tolerate disappointment, because it's long,
so you can recover. But knowing, at the same
time, that life is short will keep you moving. And it will help you to
seize the good stuff when the good stuff comes your way. Sometimes, you just
can't hesitate, because life is short. And if you really embrace these
two things at the same time-- and I don't even think
they're dissonant. I really think
they fit together. Then you'll understand why,
for example, it's OK to plan. Maybe it's even
important to plan. But at the same
time, there's really no point in planning
since you are always going to be surprised. I can guarantee you uncertainty. It's probably the only thing I
can guarantee you, uncertainty. But maybe you can
figure out a way to get excited about that,
or at least maybe comfortable with that. So plan next steps, think about
how you want to get somewhere, and be totally prepared for that
to be disrupted by something that you never thought
would come along. Life tip 11, say yes. When presented with
an opportunity, don't decide you're
not qualified, or that it's too soon, so it
would be better if you could do that later, or
that it's better not to try because you might fail. Trust yourself that
you will figure it out. Say yes, and then figure it out. You have to work hard. It may not come to
you immediately. You might need help. You might suffer a little. But work hard,
and figure it out. And this point is
related to another one-- which I will call life lesson
11.5 because I didn't want to go over 12-- which is, don't waste time
wondering how you got here, or how you got to the next step. The best advice I
ever got was from now Senator Elizabeth
Warren when she was just a mild-mannered law professor
like the rest of us, teaching in classrooms just
like this, teaching folks just like you. And when I first came
to HLS, I came here as a tenured professor
from another place. I went out to lunch
with Elizabeth Warren, who said to me, in her way,
a lot of people at Harvard spend an inordinate
amount of time wondering if they're worthy-- a lot of people running
around this university. And she's not talking
about students, she's talking about professors. A lot of professors run around
the university worrying about whether they deserve to be here,
thinking a mistake was made, are they going to be worthy. And she said to
me-- oh, by the way, I did not solicit this advice. She said to me, don't spend
one moment worrying about whether you deserve to be here. Don't question
whether you're worthy. Just figure out what you
want to do, and do it. Because Harvard
will let you do it. And that has come to be
some of the best advice I've ever gotten. Don't waste any time wondering
how you got where you are and whether you deserve it. Just figure out what you want
to do with it, and go do it. And life tip number 12,
reintroduce yourself to yourself. And by this I mean, learning
law is like learning a language. Some of you may
know other languages and understand what I mean. It requires a certain
amount of immersion over this three-year
period to sort of get the vocabulary and
the vernacular, and master the moves
and the skills, and feel like you're
comfortable doing them. And you have to practice, and
you have to get used to it. But for some of you, I think
this has meant, kind of, you dropped yourself
off for a while. And you wonder where
you went, a little bit. And what I would say
is, it's important now to pick yourself back
up and reintroduce yourself to yourself. And integrate who you've
always been with what you've learned here at the law school. And that combination will
be awesome, I promise you, if you take time to reintegrate. I also want to tell
you that you should be very proud to be a lawyer. You should strive to exemplify
the best of the profession. It can be a struggle
to do this in the face of a constant stream
of not-so-benign jokes, and sometimes broadside
attacks on the profession. A few years ago,
the New York Times ran a series on legal education
that was a real hatchet job, criticizing law
schools for being esoteric and out of touch with the real
world, and completely useless, essentially. And I really bristled at this. And it wasn't because
I'm defensive for me, a law professor. It was because I felt
defensive for you. This series failed
entirely to capture the reality of the enterprise
that we've all been engaged in for three years. It said nothing about the
skill set I described earlier. It said nothing
about the great gift of the diversity of
background and viewpoint we experience in the classroom. It said nothing of
the value of the rigorous intellectual training
that we've all been engaged in. And in fact, I found the piece
deeply anti-intellectual. And that leads me to say to
you, beware of anything-- from whatever side of
the political spectrum-- that feeds off
anti-intellectualism, as if there is something
wrong with being smart, or something wrong with being
curious and invested in ideas. There is nothing
wrong with either. And in fact, civilized
society depends on both. At a time when facts and reason
are under such unrelenting assault, you have an obligation
to defend them vocally, actively, urgently. And partly for this
reason, I promise you, it is a fantastic
time to be a lawyer. You are needed. You are valuable. You are ready. And you actually have
the keys to the kingdom. And so members of the class
of 2018, I am counting on you, on your generation, through
your various pursuits, in your own unique
ways, over the course of your diverse careers, not
just to do well for yourselves. Doing well is fine. I have nothing against money. Go make some money, it's OK. But it's not just about
doing well for yourself, so I am counting on you
to do that and more-- to live good and
honorable lives. And I know this is possible. I have complete faith in you. And I'm also counting
on you, and I think the rest of the
faculty would join me in this, with all
of your talents and with all of your
heart, to help bend the arc of the moral universe
inch by inch toward justice. In some part of your career,
and maybe with all of it, you should be working toward
this ideal of justice-- your own version of
that ideal of justice. We may not all agree
on what it looks like. But that should be
an ambition for you throughout your careers. And it can't be
done all at once, and it can't be done
by any one of you. But as a community,
I hope you'll feel committed to that enterprise. So I'm delighted
that I got a chance to speak to you
before you graduate, and what I'd like to do
with the last few minutes is get some questions,
because I know you must have some, about some
of these things that blew up my phone, and give you whatever
guidance and information I can give you before we close. So brave souls. [APPLAUSE] Thank you. Thank you. Brave, souls who will be
willing to ask a question that you have on
your mind, that you want somebody on the faculty
to say something about. Thank you. STUDENT 1: When something
bad does happen-- JODY FREEMAN: Yeah. STUDENT 1: --and
you've fallen down and all you can think about
is the bad thing that happened and how it reflects
on you, what are some tips you have for actually
taking the step to move on? JODY FREEMAN: Well,
when bad things happen you ought to take-- and you mean career? You don't-- STUDENT 1: Career, [INAUDIBLE]. JODY FREEMAN: I
think, first of all, owning up to your
responsibility in whatever happened is really important. Sometimes we're
responsible largely, sometimes we're only
partly responsible, but you ought to
look face-to-face at what it is you're responsible
for, and totally own it. And not make excuses for it,
and not try to minimize it, just own it. But at the same time, you
don't overblow it, you know? You don't have to
take responsibility for things other people
are responsible for. So I would say,
just confront it. And there are lessons
to be learned from it. That's what I would
say to you to do, what is the lesson for me? Dwelling on a terrible thing
forever and flogging yourself, it does nobody
any good, frankly. But owning it, and
understanding and analyzing what it teaches you, that's
where the gift of it lies. These failures, as hard as
it is to see, are gifts. It's very hard to
see them that way because they're terribly
painful, but they are gifts, and they will lead
you to be better. And that's how you
ought to view them. Yes. STUDENT 2: Could you
tell us about one of those times for you? JODY FREEMAN: Failure? Hmm. How to choose? OK. Well, I had a
terrible experience at one point in my life. The reason I stress
the toxic bosses thing is because I've had an
experience like that. And for the longest
time, I thought that I could figure it out. I don't know if any of you
have ever had this experience, but I'm somebody
who thinks it's got to be my fault if I'm having
a work experience that isn't working out. Or if something's not
working, it must be me. And I'm going to
try a different way. I'm going to make
this person like me. I'm going to make this person
realize I'm on their team. I'm trying to make
them look good. I'm not the problem. I'm going to help
solve the problem. And I kept coming at it
from different angles. I tried everything. I pulled everything
out of my toolkit. I emptied the toolkit. I had nothing left. I was looking around
for other options. And it was the most difficult,
most painful experience of my life. And I finally realized-- I felt about it that
it was my failure. And I finally realized that
the only way to deal with this is to remove myself
from the situation, because I couldn't overcome
the toxicity of the boss. So the reason it's a story about
failure is, to this day, years later, something
in me still thinks it was my fault.
Something in me still thinks I failed at
this job because I couldn't surmount this
terrible environment I was in. And that's why I still
treat it as a failure. But what I learned was, you
try everything you've got, and then you confront the fact
that some things are immovable. Once in a while, you meet
something you can't figure out, you can't get around, you
can't, by yourself, overcome. And for your own survival,
you sometimes leave. It does happen. And so there might be
a moment in your career where you have to take another
job because this one just doesn't work for you. Or you have to leave
a particular situation or relationship because this
one just doesn't work for you. And even if you feel
that's a failure, you have to have the strength
to take the risk of leaving. And taking the risk of leaving
can be hard because you have something to lose. Maybe there's going to
be reputational fallout from doing that. Maybe somebody will bad-mouth
you from doing that. Maybe you will be
losing an opportunity because you left that
situation, or that boss, or that work environment. And you know what, sometimes you
have to leave it on the table, and look for another door
that's going to open. So that was one of my
most profound experiences, was feeling like I hit a
wall, and I couldn't fix it. I'm not used to not fixing it,
and it makes me nuts when I can't. More? That cannot be it. My phone has so
many things in it. Where is one-- yeah? STUDENT 3: What do you
that makes you feel alive? PROFESSOR FREEMAN: I mean,
there are lots of things that make me feel alive. So first of all, you have to
know yourself really well, right? I'm going to answer this more
directly after a little tangent down this river. If you want to figure out
how to stay connected, or engaged, or
excited, and alive, you have to figure out
what works for you. And that's sort
of generally true, you have to know who you are. You guys are very
different people, you know? You have different
temperaments and dispositions, different strengths,
different weaknesses. Some of you are like the
traditional extroverted leader type, some of you are more
introverted leader types. Some of you like to work in
noisy chaotic environments where there's
multitasking, some of you like one project at a time. I mean, you have to know
who you are in order to figure out what
kind of career in life will best excite you. And same thing with
staying alive and engaged, what works for you? Are you the kind of person
who will feel energized by going to New York and
seeing a whole bunch of plays over a week period, and
going to a bunch of museums, and absorbing a
bunch of culture? Are you somebody who wants
to take your free time and go traveling
all over the world to interesting,
adventurous places? Are you somebody who likes
to do death-defying feats? Are you physically-- do you
like the physical stuff? So I, spring break,
what did I do? I went and skied the steeps
at Whistler back home, right? And because I'm
older now, I always take an instructor
expert with me in case I fall down
the entire length of the bowl, which can happen. Although this time, the
instructor fell down the length of the bowl and I had to
rescue her, but that doesn't-- the point is, sometimes you
need to be alive by just saying, I'm going to climb that thing,
or I'm going to ski that thing, or I'm going to-- So it's so personal. Some of you want to
keep up with a language that you left
languishing, or whatever. But there are ways. You just have to
figure out, what's the thing that makes
you really excited, and not give it up
just because you're working really, really hard. You will be working really,
really hard if you go into big law, if you go into-- not even big law. Whatever you do as a
young person starting out, you're going to work
really, really hard. So you've got to find these
other ways of feeding yourself, and commit to them. I put stuff on my schedule
that nobody knows about. I have, like, code words. And my assistant kind
of knows, but it's immovable stuff that
maybe wouldn't get respect in the world, right? But I got to go do that
thing, or I'm not going to be any good for my work. So start using code
words for self-care that you put on your schedule. Other things? Marilyn. MARILYN ROBB: When
you were speaking about how life is
both short and long, you mentioned both the use
and futility of making a plan. JODY FREEMAN: Yeah, use and
futility of making a plan. Yes. MARILYN ROBB: I'm interested in,
when you were a third-year law student, if you made a
plan, and then if so, how far you deviated? JODY FREEMAN: So
here's the problem. People come into my office and
say this thing about planning, five-year-plan-- somebody's
told you at some point in life, you have to have a five-year
plan, maybe, or a 10-year plan, or a life plan. And I am the worst person to
talk to about that because I have not had a plan. Truly and honestly. Now, I've been very lucky. A lot of this is luck, right? But my plan is to
follow my nose. So when stuff's
interesting, I'm super interested in
interesting things. And when something
comes across my transom that seems interesting, I
try to find a way to do it. And I have some faith
that it will lead to something else interesting. And it's worked out for me. I can't explain why
it's worked out. And then eventually things
that I did at one point, that actually I couldn't tell
the relevance of exactly. I did them because
they seem interesting, and then, OK, that's over. But I couldn't have predicted
that it would come back around. It turns out later, like
10 or 15 years later, that I'm drawing on that thing
that I did 10 or 15 years ago. And it all makes this
magical, mystical sense to me. My career now makes
total sense to me. But I could never
have planned that, and actually I didn't
particularly try. But I just want to-- you've got to have
some faith that you can follow your instincts,
and follow your nose, and one thing will
lead to another. So if you're not a planner,
you can still do OK. And if you are a
planner, great, it's OK. Have some plans, but
don't get too upset if you end up deviating. More? MARILYN ROBB: All
right, so we have time for one more question. JODY FREEMAN: Lot of pressure
on the last question. There have to be
things you're worried about deep in your soul. Yes. STUDENT 4: So you repeatedly
said that part of it is knowing who you are. JODY FREEMAN: Yeah. STUDENT 4: But I don't think
that's a given, knowing who you are and what you actually-- JODY FREEMAN: It's
a lifelong project. STUDENT 4: So what
active steps did you take to actually
figure out the things that you really want to do? JODY FREEMAN: Well
I think knowing sort of the who you are, and
what you really want to do, is not a moment-to-moment--
it's not an on/off switch. Like, you know,
or you don't know. I think it is this
process of discovery. You try things out and you
learn more about yourself. You guys have some
basic starting points. You do know some things
about yourselves by now, you're fully grown up. And you know some
things you hate to do, and some things you love to do. And you're zeroing in on it. But then there's some
trial and error, right? That's what doing summer work
is about, and internships, and going into the workplace
and trying a job or two, and finding out that,
you know what, this isn't the environment for me. This isn't where I thrive. So I guess I'd say,
it's trial and error. But I think the
only way to do this is to have some
self-awareness, and to really, really be intentional, meaning,
really think about things. Really think about,
why am I going here? Why am I working for them? Why am I in this relationship
with this person? What am I doing now? Really be intentional. We've all sort of chased things. Because you're all
very high-achieving, and your faculty
is the same way. And we've all gone from this,
to this, to this, and it all-- you know, we excel
here at high school then you excel in college. And well, naturally you're
going to excel in law school. And then maybe because there
are all these prestigious things to get, you're going to go
get those prestigious things. And once you're done collecting
all the prestigious things, and it's all on
the piece of paper, and it all looks
very nice, you still have to figure out, why
am I here on the planet? And what am I doing? And what kind of impact
do I want to have, and what will make me happy? And that is about being
intentional about your choices. Nobody else is in
charge except you. And the obvious
things to do-- you're running out of the
obvious things to do. You've sort of done all
the obvious things to do. And that's harder, because you
now have to make some choices. So I would just say, don't get
on the little yellow brick road path and just do it because
it's right in front of you. I would say, ask yourself who
am I, and what am I doing? In all seriousness, who am
I, and what am I doing here? And what makes me
thrive and happy, and how can I make the
world a better place, and my community a better place? If you really ask yourself
these questions, you know-- I think you know how to answer
these questions for now. And then you adapt and
learn as you go on. There was one more
hand, so I can't resist. STUDENT 5: So I was thinking,
10 years from now, some of us will be super successful-- JODY FREEMAN: 10 years
from now, some of you will be super successful. OK. STUDENT 5: --might be mediocre. So how can you-- JODY FREEMAN: Wow. Wow. STUDENT 5: How would you
avoid comparing yourself to the other students? JODY FREEMAN: Well,
I wouldn't do that. What you just did, I
would stop doing that. First of all, I would get off
Facebook, which the data says makes everyone miserable. Quite apart from privacy and
other issues that poor Zuck is suffering from at the moment. I mean, the data says that
when you go on social media where people post
images of their lives, they post the best
version of everything that's ever happened to them. And they all look gorgeous, and
they're always off on a trip to hike the Himalayas, and
their children are perfect. And it's the worst
possible experience. So stop doing that. Stop monitoring everybody
else's life, OK? Number one. Number two, stop
with these categories of successful and mediocre. I don't know, what is that? This categorization
thing is not helpful. And the last thing I would say
about this is-- in other words, don't worry about classifying
degrees of success. I would try to give it up. I know it's very tempting. But you have to realize
everybody is challenged. You may not see it. Nobody likes to show it. We're all very challenged,
and people are suffering. You may not see that,
but people are suffering in one way or another, too. And so if you think everybody's
wildly successful but you're not, you're just wrong. It's just a different
mix of relative successes and relative challenges, and
everybody has their own mix. And in all the things
you're worried about, you are not alone. That's what my phone
exercise is about. Almost everybody's
worried about, are they going to fall
in the mediocre bucket? Just forget about that bucket. You've already
demonstrated you're ambitious, creative,
talented, interesting people. There's no reason
to think you'll ever be anything but that. Have some faith. Go forth. Enjoy. I think I'll leave it there. [APPLAUSE] MARILYN ROBB: Thank
you all for coming. We have a poster in
the back-right corner of the room and some Sharpies. Please consider writing
your name and only your name on the way out. And thank you again
to Professor Freeman.
